


In Sound Judgement

by NegativeAperture



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Neglect, F/F, Fake Lawyer Jargon, Gen, Human Rights, I'm just really interested in the society there, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Konoha is not a nice place, Law, Legal Systems, Listen OC is gonna try to overhaul the whole system, Logic, Military Dictatorships, Morality, OC insert, Original Character(s), Orphans, Political Bullshit, Political Intrigue, Politics, Propaganda, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Slow To Update, The whole Shinobi world is not a nice place, Trans Characters, Trans Female Character, Trans Female Naruto, Unreliable Narrator, Will add as I go along, but not really, political structures, semi-realistic, so buckle up for a lot of politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegativeAperture/pseuds/NegativeAperture
Summary: The main question, she thinks, isn’t her chance at survival or whether she’ll stick to the plot. No, it’s whether she should change the inherently flawed system that has caused every single problem ever. Arguably, she’s in the best position to fix it. People are certainly more willing to listen to you when you threaten them with the giant fox demon in your gut. But what would the cost be? Her morals? Her humanity?The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all.(In which a human rights lawyer is reincarnated into a world without morality, without logic, and most of all, without laws. Helping the world was easier when people weren’t ninjas.)





	1. Conscience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho boy. This has been plaguing me for months now, and I finally decided to write it up. Updates will be slow (for now) since I'm on the cusp of finishing school, but I just had to put this out because it wouldn't stop bugging me. This chapter is a bit fragmented and slightly disjointed since I wrote a lot of the parts separately, but if it's too distracting or makes it difficult to read, don't hesitate to let me know. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Also, I'm not trans, and while I've done some research, if I write anything that is inappropriate, let me know. It's not a major part of the story, but I don't want to offend anyone.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

— _Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights_

 

* * *

 

There's something terrifying about being launched into the unknown, whether it's a country, a relationship, or even a new café. A new world however, goes beyond terror and launches straight into absurdity.

Reincarnation was one thing, but this? This... world, this society, this _story_?

If it were any other world, she thinks she could handle it, but the Shinobi world? A world that quite literally promoted all of the things she fought against in her old world? She was going to go insane. In fanfiction, when she still read it daily before the duties of responsibility caught up to her, people only focused on the ninja aspect, on the killing and murder and morality, and while that plays a pretty huge fucking role in her new life as well, she's concerned with the bigger picture. The much bigger picture.

The picture of society and how fucking dumb it was.

Forget the cycle of hatred, this world's main problem was its contentment to perpetuate the cycle of stupidity that had plagued the countries for decades. No-one was spared from idiocy, it seemed like. Not the geniuses, not the clans, not the most overpowered bastards this world had to offer. She was the only logical person walking amongst fools. And maybe it was arrogance, maybe she was thinking dangerously, but nothing, nothing had convinced her otherwise. The main reason she had never been able to actually read or watch the series was the fact that watching it was bad for her blood pressure. She couldn't handle the stupidity. The sheer ignorance and lack of critical thinking that everyone seemed to have skipped over in their developmental ages. That and how almost every chapter she could name at least three human rights abuses. If anything, it was good for revision and how humans should _not_ act.

For God's sake, literally every problem, every death and war in this world could have been prevented with just a little bit of logic, a pinch of diplomacy, and a heavy removal of every aspect of mindless rage that seemed to possess the population at random moments. And a huge overhaul of the system, because Jesus Christ, how has no-one realised that military dictatorships are a major cause of war?

She blamed the ineffectual and frankly, unbelievably unsustainable political, economic and social system that everyone insisted they use, because no-one seemed to bloody realise that that was the root of all their problems. Of course there were going to be wars if you sustained your entire country off fucking murder and assassination! Who the hell came up with this? Who thought this could possibly be a good idea? There was a reason most military or violence based societies did not last long.

And yet... and yet it shoddily worked for a society that had never known anything else. Very, very badly keep in mind, really, really shittily, but they somewhat managed to truck on. Barely. The seams of society were hanging on by threads though, hastily covered up with promises of greatness and strength and whatever other spoon-fed bullshit they fed every child the moment they were able to understand. Her supervisor would have a goddamn heart attack, because the bullshit she'd had to wade through in textbooks made her nauseous in disbelief.

Education wipes out ignorance, but for some reason, the entirety of the Shinobi world seemed to be ridiculously happy to continue the circle of stupidity. The problem with knowledge, in her view, was that people in this world were either too dumb to use it, or too greedy for it to have any outcome other than tragedy.

And that was the crux of her problems. Knowledge. An abundance of it, despite every facet of it coming from fanfiction and whatever discussion boards took her fancy. She had read enough fanfiction to understand the plot, to get angry at it, to know what happened and how it ended, but the details, the intricacies of it were lost on her. Too infuriating. Too time-consuming for a fandom she barely dipped her toes in.

And then she became a lawyer and all semblance of interest had fled her in favour for work. Sure, she kept up with some of her favourites from time to time, would reread the ones she saw as 'classics', but what little investment she'd had in the beginning was all but gone.

Still, she'd read enough fanfiction to know about her situation, as un-fucking-believable as it was. She didn't understand why some divine being thought the best thing to do with her consciousness or soul or whatever it was was to shove it in the main character of a series she barely had anything to do with. Surely, surely there had to be someone better to do this to? A lesbian human rights lawyer was, in her opinion, the absolute worst person to put into the world of Naruto. Seriously.

 

* * *

 

She was intricately familiar with death and crime, after all, her job literally revolved around the worst aspects humanity could throw at her. After almost fifteen years, she liked to think she'd seen it all. She could unflinchingly stare down the most horrifying war criminals the world had seen, was able to push down the disgust and violent shock that hit her the moment she came home. She'd reviewed cases that would give people nightmares for years on end, and pushed through until they could put the bastards in the hands of justice.

She had been thirty-something when she died, and hadn't really expected to live much longer, because hey, being a human rights lawyer is unsurprisingly absolutely awful for your heart, particularly when your heart is already kind terrible. Of course, the kind of cases she was faced with on a near daily basis certainly didn't help. She'd seen lawyers come and go out of the profession, unable to handle the type of shit she waded through for years. She didn't blame them.

Her death wasn't anything to write home about. Nothing like the fanfiction she would read in her spare time, no big dramatic exit, no murder or car accident. Her already shitty heart just gave out one day, unable to handle the stress, the high pressure, the violent aftermath that plagued her dreams at night. The pain came, sudden, strong, harsh, so she'd looked her wife in the eyes, kissed her on the lips, and died.

Except something had decided: fuck that, here's a new body, good luck.

And maybe she would have been fine with it. Maybe she could have built a new life.

If there hadn't been several major problems.

First of all, as she slowly grew, it became obvious that her new home wasn't her old world, didn't have the laws and rules she was used to. Instead she had been dropped in some fucking fantasy world from a comic she hadn't even read. Oh she knew the plot and the main characters, but only due to fanfiction and the wiki.

Again, she maybe could have lived with that. She could've stayed a civilian or something, tried to advocate for rights in her own, subtle, not dangerous way.

But then she was faced with a dilemma that ripped out any chance she could have at slipping away unnoticed. One that automatically changed her path onto an already set one, and took away any freedom she might have had.

She was the main fucking character.

She was Naruto.

And unlike in fanfiction where the character's gender is ever so graciously changed to fit your own, real life was not like that. She was in a male body. But honestly, she had bigger problems. While it made her uncomfortable, she was sure she could find some HRT or do that weird transformation jutsu or whatever and be done with it. (If there was one good thing about this world, it was how things like these could be easily dealt with with magic, chakra, whatever the fuck it was.) She had worse problems to deal with, and being a woman was not one of them, thank you very much.

This was where the third reason came in.

She hated Konoha. Hated the entire world she was forced in, because it was a contradiction to every single one of her morals.

Konoha was shit. The people within it were shit. Their policies were shit. They treated her like shit.

The whole world was really shit.

And while she was used to unnecessary hostility and sub-par treatment in her old world because of her sexuality, her situation in Konoha was completely overkill. At least she had support groups in her old world; with people who were like her or who just didn't give a shit about those sorts of things. At least she'd had her wife in her old world.

But here she was, stuck in a world that wanted to make her kill while trying to kill _her_ and that was before she remembered the prophecy.

Fuck that.

She was not going to live out the rest of her days doing work that went against her values, her ideals, her very life blood.

No, she was refused to dance to the puppet strings that Kishimoto, the Hokage, Danzo and so on wanted to place on her. She refused to follow the road of murder and crime that she had fought against in her last life.

She would have to be subtle, be cautious and careful, but the first chance she got, the moment she was strong enough to leave, she would bolt.

Hopefully, it would be before she had to decide between her life or her morals.

 

* * *

 

It didn't actually hit her until she was four years old, plonked in the middle of the garden and watching a bunch of grubby kids run past her. It was like... going on a bender and then waking up, kinda aware of what happened last night but not really, not until you fully woke up and went oh shit, did I do that? She had been grumbling about the unfairness of Hana one moment, before suddenly going, oh yeah, _that_ happened.

One moment she'd been a sticky, dirty three year old, sat in the mud, before suddenly still being a sticky, dirty three year old, except with the knowledge and experience of a fully grown adult who viewed both this world and herself as fictional and really ridiculous.

Of course, she promptly passed the fuck out. The overload of information, the pure shock at being fully aware of who she was and her surroundings was too much for a young, pretty undeveloped mind. And just like going on a bender, she woke up with a splitting headache, the faint feeling of lost dignity, and the awareness that she was probably gonna die.

Because for fuck's sake, she was Naruto, and Naruto already had a hard enough time surviving without being screwed over with the morality and knowledge of a human rights lawyer.

This entire world was a walking human rights violation, a contradiction to every one of her morals, of her goddamned job. And she was going to have to be one of them.

Yeah, fuck that. Absolutely fuck that.

She only panicked vaguely afterwards, in the sense that she knew that her situation was completely fucked up and outside of the realms of possibility, but was reassured by the fact that she (kinda, not really, oh God what was she going to do) knew what would happen and would do everything in her power to stay the fuck out of it. And she would start by making changes. Serious changes to herself, the supposed 'canon' and the absolute load of horseshit that was Naruto's future. She couldn't give a shit about 'changing the story' and 'not staying true to what happened' and all those other things self-inserts seemed to worry about. She was gonna get strong, get out of Konoha and open up a flower shop or something in the ass end of nowhere, and stay the hell away from plot shenanigans and human rights violations. She would let herself die again before she did any of the shit they expected her to do, that the plot expected her to do. She may be desensitised but her morals were her life, her job was her life, and she refused to go against them. She refused to become one of _them_ for the sake of the story.

But... the questioned blared in her mind. How much should she change? She was determined not to become a tool in the hands of old warmongers who really should have retired and died already, not when she'd dealt with them for so long in her last life. She knew what that kind of service did, saw the impacts and trauma those fuckwits caused in their quest for power and superiority. It was disgusting. It was so deeply and fundamentally wrong and-

No-one here had an issue with it. No-one saw a problem. Well, no-one except for those insane fools at the Akatsuki, and they really weren't prime examples since they were using the exact same tactics as the system they wanted to eradicate to achieve their bullshit idea of peace.

God, this world was a fucking mess.

Did she hold some responsibility to change the system? To fix it, to... make it better? Could she even do that? Did she have the right to do that? Because Jesus, it would take a ridiculous amount of work, and it raised ethical questions as well. Was it even, fucking hell, culturally appropriate for her to do this?

Or was she just making excuses?

She decided to shove those thoughts away to think about when she wasn't a drooling toddler.

First things first though, she absolutely had to change her name. It was getting confusing. And annoying. She might be Naruto, but she wasn't really, and since the actual Naruto wasn't actually the reincarnation of a disgruntled lawyer who was a woman, she decided 'fuck it' and started racking her brains for _other_ Japanese names. Those two years as a prepubescent weaboo really paid off, was something she never thought she'd say ever. Eventually she settled on something similar enough to the actual name, something that was both pretty cute and a nice big fuck you to canon.

Thus, she became Nana. It was simple, adorable and if she remembered correctly, meant seven in Japanese, which was a nice allusion to her future team number. (It also reminded her of the absolute insanity that would be, thank fucking _god_ she didn't give two shits about canon, because that was one clusterfuck she wasn't gonna touch with a 3 foot pole.) She proudly announced it at dinner time with a tone that said she didn't care if people didn't like it, it was her name now, and if someone wanted to say anything about it, then she'd tell them they were a rotisserie shithead who could fuck all the way off to Kiri.

Weirdly enough though, it wasn't that hard to enforce the others to call her by that. Maybe it was because the orphanage was practically run by the older orphans. God knew the Matron didn't give a shit. Her vague memories reminded her of her carers, children barely older than thirteen who had changed her diapers, fed her bottles and sung her childish songs. Of course, all of the orphans older than ten had to pitch in, which meant everyone knew everyone, and that left them as close as family. These orphans couldn't care less about the fact that people cursed her, spat at her, called her a demon, an abomination, because _they were used to it happening to them_. In their eyes, she was just another orphaned child, another shunned and rejected member of society. She was one of _them_. And in order to survive the wretched world that had it out for them, they needed to band together.

(Social Services would have a fucking field day here. Seriously, it was worrying. Actually, every court in the world concerned with human rights would be aghast at the conditions here. She was aghast and she'd seen it so many times before, in her old world, but to actually experience it was a completely different thing.)

It seemed like gender and sexuality was Not A Big Deal here. In the orphanage alone, there were several people who were similar. Haru and Kyoko preferred neutral pronouns, Kanna, her main carer was also a trans woman, and just last week, Ryuu announced that he wasn't always a guy, and would let people know how he was feeling. And that was the end of that.

After all, she still had to come up with some shoddy plan of survival.

 

* * *

 

Nana is six when she meets the Sandaime Hokage for the first time, and the entire experience is... uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and eye-opening, because it hadn't completely hit her before. She's dealt with war criminals before, glimpsed at military dictators several times, but she's never liked it. She can school her face into neutrality, into distant acknowledgement, but inside, she's trembling as she stands before a man so revered by his subordinates, even as he sends them to their deaths with a smile. It was easier before, seeing those criminals, because they were locked up in shackles, and didn't really have any magical ninja powers that could kill her with barely a flick of a finger. She's not in a courtroom, not in her territory. This is the enemy's land, and she's nothing more than a tiny child caught in the politics of death and dictatorship.

Here is the man responsible for making her life hell, who lets his old friend kidnap and torture children, who trains children into soldiers and lets them run to their death, who acts a kindly old man but holds the final word above all. There are no laws in the shinobi world, only Kage.

Her past and knowledge gnaw at her mind, burning and itching against her skull as it whispers about duty and promises, hisses deaths that will happen and that have already happened due to the system. A soft guilt wells up in her chest, because she has never run before, never ran in her old life, would face her cases stoically and strongly, determined to see justice but-

She is nothing more than an ant swept in centuries of militarism, of dictatorship and tradition. She may have sworn an oath as a human rights lawyer to bring criminals to justice, but how can she do the same here, when every adult, even every child she meets should be locked away for war crimes? She is one person, just a single person in a flood of killers, of a society that has been allowed to continue for far longer than it should have, and deep inside her she knows that there is little she can do. It doesn't matter that she's the protagonist, that she has unlimited power hidden beneath her fingertips. The only way to change this world is through death and destruction and-

She can't do it. How can she uphold her oaths in a world like this? How can she fight for justice and equality when Ninjas have no concept of such a thing, no laws to keep it in check? Violence and death is the currency here, not diplomacy and justice, not communication and betterment. Power is absolute here, and it has turned this world into a rotten husk.

But in the moment, she can't let those feelings matter. Can't let the Hokage see her thoughts, see who she is, see the hatred she holds for everything around her. The Hokage is smiling gently at her, bowed slightly to match her tiny tiny height, and she _hates_.

"Hello there young one. What is your name?" He asks kindly, warmly, his eyes soft and grandfatherly. Of course, he knows who she is, had summoned her himself, but he's giving her a chance to introduce herself, some illusion of control. He can see the way she fidgets, the discomfort in her position, the wariness in her face, and offers her some measure of control to calm her down. There is no way Nana can hide the roiling unease in her posture, not from a man like him. Whether his actions are sincere or a ploy to get her guard down, she doesn't know, but she sees him wait patiently for her response, sees the warm interest hiding the truth, and she swallows.

"Nana, I'm Nana." It sounds like a promise, like a stone tossed against water making the first changes to an already changed world, and she wants to vomit. Maybe she should have said 'Naruto', it would make it easier for her to change her name and disappear later on, but she's called herself Nana for years, can't betray who she is, not when she's absolutely sure that the Hokage already knows her name.

"Nana," he sounds out, nodding slowly, as though he's weighing her name on his tongue, weighing _her_ in his mind. The Hokage looks over her, looks at her patchy dress, her messy hair pulled back into a childish braid, the dented flower pins crammed into her hair for some illusion of dignity. Kyoko had shoved the pins in her hair this morning, worry and fear forcing their hands to tremble.

"That's a cute name," he says finally, warm smile on his face, "did you choose it yourself?"

Nana ducks shyly, hesitantly nodding her head, trying to convey an aura of timid childishness. His smile grows fond, and he places a hand on her shoulder, subtly grabbing her attention to make her look up.

"Do you know who I am, Nana-chan?"

Of fucking course she knows. Every child, no matter how old knows who this man is, how much power he holds in his hands. But it's only the orphans who truly understand what exactly he can do. What exactly, he lets happen.

Kids who catch the eyes of old men never come back.

It's why Kyoko and Ryuu and Yuji paled when they got the missive, why Kanna couldn't look at her without tears slipping down her face. They lost little Ume barely three weeks ago, so clever, so agile, her ability to sense chakra past what was usual for a little orphan girl. She showed it off during Academy Recruitment Day, and she was gone within the week.

And now the Hokage himself wanted to see Nana, wanted to talk to her, Nana who was hated far beyond the normal disdain for grubby orphans, Nana who had huge amounts of chakra and intelligence that surpassed most teenagers let alone a six year old.

Nana, who nobody but nameless, unimportant orphans would miss.

"Play it down," Yuji told her, "show you're not interesting, not anything special, even though you are." He was the one to braid her hair, hands shaking, and gave her a bigger breakfast than usual. He had hugged her tightly before they left, held on tightly and desperately, unspoken pleas between the two of them, before he was forced to let go when the ninja escort cleared his throat.

"You're just a normal six year old girl, who likes normal things. Make sure they see you struggle with words, don't say anything clever," Kyoko whispered as they tangled the flower pins in her hair. They had found them in a dumpster, bent and battered, but they had straightened them out again, scrubbed them with a rag until they shone. They fiddled with Nana's hair over and over, until there was no longer an excuse to keep her there.

"Play dumb," Ryuu demanded, her face narrowed and worried, "I don't care what they think, as long as they label you and idiot and unworthy of their time. But be subtle. Don't let them notice, don't let them know what you're doing." She grabbed her shoulders, brought her close to her face, until Nana could see the cracks in her foundation, the smears of mascara at the corners of her eyes. She had been crying. "Do you understand, Nana? Don't show off. Don't show them how clever you are. Talk slowly, be dense, have a short attention span, look away when the try to talk to you, do you understand?"

She had only released her after she nodded, after she whispered her agreement softly.

"Don't get taken." She had stared intensely at her for another moment, before giving a decisive nod, and a quiet kiss against her cheek, leaving behind smeared lipstick.

Kanna had to be pried away from her, sobbing into the scuffed kimono they were able to find, begging for her to come back, to please come back.

Something small in her broke, at the resigned acceptance in Yuji's eyes, the quiet terror in Kyoko's hands, the hidden outrage in Ryuu's words, the distraught grief in Kanna's tears. How used to this were they? How used to saying goodbye, to being forced to watch their family be torn away from them? To the knowledge that they were powerless to stop it?

She had gathered their advice, repeated it in her head like a mantra, even though she knows that the Hokage will see through it. Even though she knows that out of all of them, she is the safest one. She will never be taken by Danzo, not with her prominent status, not when the Hokage has eyes watching her at all times, trusted eyes, not faceless, nameless ANBU members. Being a jinchuuriki has its drawbacks, but it also gives her a layer of security none of the other orphans have. Nana will never be stolen away in the night, not without some seriously dedicated ninja willing to fight through several layers of ANBU protection.

(But a part of her questioned how willing Danzo would be if she let slip her intelligence. How desperate, how dedicated to spiriting her away?)

The kids at the orphanage don't know she's safe, don't know that Sarutobi wouldn't let anything happen to Minato's child. She shouldn't know that either, but it weighs down on her, both as a security blanket and as a reminder that escaping Konoha is going to be hell. They're not going to let someone as genetically important as her get away. Not only does she have her father's potential, but she's a direct descendent of a pure-bred Uzumaki. Any children of hers would be viable jinchuuriki candidates, not to mention the variety of other abilities they could inherit. She's an asset through and through, and Konoha would tighten their grip as much as they needed to keep her from slipping away.

And yet...

And yet, the irony lies in their unwillingness to foster loyalty or goodwill, to give her reason to stay and pro-create, to defend the village with her dying breath. It heats her blood, makes her furious at the hypocrisy, the injustice, the sheer stupidity of it all, but she tampers it down, lets her righteous anger simmer deep inside her, fuelling her determination to leave.

The Hokage is still waiting for her answer, and she forces herself to squeak in embarrassment, to nod and give a sheepish grin.

"You're the Hokage."

You're a war criminal, she wants to scream, you perpetuate a society that only benefits the powerful and tosses the innocents to the wolves you-

She clamps it down, tries to balance an aura of air-headed distraction while still showing the excited worship of a kid meeting their hero, meeting the man they've been brainwashed into revering.

"I am," he chuckles out, pleased at her response, but he leans closer, winks as though he's telling a secret, and asks, "do you know what I do?"

You send children off to die, you toss the broken beneath your feet so you and your comrades can climb higher, you pushed a child out into a sea of hatred and expect them to-

"You're the strongest ninja ever! You look after us all!" She cheers out over the bitter words rattling in her skull, in her heart. The Hokage grins, laughs a happy laugh and ruffles her hair, enthused by her excitement, her childish glee and she _burns._

"I do indeed!" He's beaming, smile wide and delighted, and he asks: "Do you want to learn how to look after people as well, like I do?"

She wants to hate this man, wants to see him as the criminal he is, but... is he not a victim as well? He believes he's doing the right thing, believes he knows best-

(but don't they all? Don't they all first start out with good intentions, before the power beings to coil around their hearts and minds until they _rot_?)

She sees an old man over the image of a war criminal, sees a father and a grandfather smeared alongside a dictator, sees a tired, grieving, regretful man even as she imagines him signing the papers sealing so many deaths.

She breathes, and pushes it down.

It doesn't matter who he was, who he wants to be. He is a criminal, should be labelled as such, even as he stands in such a position of power. How many times did she glimpse across a courtroom and see such a familiar visage, see another mourning leader who never meant for it to get this far-

But it did. It did, and people died because of it, people suffered for it. People are suffering now, and she thinks of the orphanage, her family in everything but blood, her children who she would protect with her life if her body weren't so small, thinks of the squalor and grime they live in, the tinge of fear that coats every laugh, every smile. She thinks of her children, forced to bend and break in the face of society's dismissal, their disgust, their refusal to take responsibility.

And deep inside, she makes an unconscious choice, unknown to her yet, but the soft embers of determination are lit beneath her skin.

"Yes," she answers, still keeping her voice light and cheerful, but there's something heavier to her agreement, something sombre and unwilling, but resolved all the same.

And maybe the Hokage hears it, maybe he can feel the deeper meaning behind her words, but he gives no indication other than a gentle smile and a pleased look.

(But she has been reading people for so long, can spot the darkness within, the regret, the heavy weight of a decision. She is six years old, and they're going to prepare her for war. She is a weapon, she is their weapon but-

She refuses. She refuses. She is her own weapon, and she will do it like she did in her last life: with her words and logic, because her battleground is not a war zone, no, it's a courtroom, and there, she has her say. There, she is in charge. Because sticks and kunai can kill and bleed, but words can topple governments.)

(And they will.)

(She guaran-fucking-tees it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we have it. I really want to focus on the society and political aspect of the Nations, because it's something that I've turned over in my head for a long time. So I guess in that way, Nana is... slightly a SI? But not really. She's gonna ask a lot of the questions I have, but deal with it in a different way.
> 
> Please leave a review on your way out!
> 
> EDIT: I now have a [tumblr](https://negativeaperture.tumblr.com/), so if anyone wants to ask stuff, go ahead!


	2. Distinction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A more sombre chapter, of consequences, family, and decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments!!! I know this chapter is out pretty soon, but I didn't want to leave with just one chapter. This one is a bit... darker? Sadder than the other? While I want there to be some humor in this story, particularly with Nana's approaches, a lot of the world is pretty damn grim and depressing, which is reflected here. Anyhow, I hope this is written okay, and the next chapter probably won't come out for a while, since I have four days packed with revision.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

—  _Article 2 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights_

 

* * *

 

Nana returns back to the orphanage in the evening, hands shaking in the sleeves of her kimono as the full force of her agreement rings over and over again in her mind.

Tomorrow, she would join the Academy.

Tomorrow, she would become a child soldier.

Tomorrow, she would learn how to kill.

Bile swims up her throat, but she pushes it down, tries to keep herself from raising further questions. After all, why would a child so obviously eager to join the Academy, having just met her hero, feel sick? She isn’t as practiced as holding a poker face, as locking away the screams with a smile as before, but she blames it on her body, on the unused muscles and childish emotions making her go haywire.

God, she was so... proud isn’t the write word, but grateful, for her ability to keep things under lock and key during high profile cases back then. Once upon a time she could read through a horrific case without flinching, could keep the disgust and vomit away for an entire week, before she came home and collapsed in her wife’s arms. It hadn’t been healthy, but any sign of weakness, any faltering motion, and she would have been torn apart.

And now? Now she can barely keep herself from vomiting without a straight face, and it chafes, it burns that her body can’t keep up with her mind, not when the same rules of the court apply here. Except here, she’ll literally be torn apart. The scales have dipped, the stakes are higher, and every step is on a tightrope of imprisonment and death. The smallest mistake, the slightest hesitation, and she’ll fall.

She’s not sure which one is better.

Her escort leaves the moment she’s in front of the door, and she feels a desperate relief at their absence. Of course, she knows she’s still being watched, but there’s less pressure in their distant examination than there is in their direct presence. The door swings shut behind her, and she breathes, leaning against the worn door. But her respite is short, since the moment the sound of the door closing reverberates throughout the house, Yuji rushes down the stairs, Kanna and the others close on his heels.

“Nana,” he gasps out, desperately relieved, the terror and grief fading from his eyes as he grabs her and holds her tight. Kanna is sobbing again, trying to push through Yuji to hold her as well, her wails piercing through the excited and joyous chatter of the kids, and Kyoko presses kisses to her cheeks, tears streaking down their face as Ryuu watches from a distance, a quiet smile on her lips.

She’s home.

She’s safe.

And for a moment, she lets herself weep as well, both in relief to see her family and in fear of what’s to come, of the choices she will have to make. But for now, her family is here, and she can fool herself into thinking she’s safe. Just for a little while.

Yuji pulls back at her tears, sees her trembling hands and worn face and he begins to fuss, bundling her up and pulling her to the main room, the quiet worry and fear returning. Kanna latches on to her hand, tightly, harshly, refusing to be separated again, and it’s strange to have someone like her in her life again. Kanna is her mother and sister in one, despite barely being sixteen, and as much as Nana wants to protest at the childish treatment, she won’t, not when it means so much to Kanna. The moment a child turns ten here, they are expected to help raise the children, with one person allocated as a main carer, and Kanna has been hers since she was a baby, since Kanna was ten years old. It is cruel to place so many expectations on someone so young, but without this system, the children would die, would be neglected more than they already are, because the Matron rarely does anything, rarely has time to watch over so many children crammed into a place meant for less than half of them.

Here, it is Yuji who looks after them, the most responsible of them all, the one who takes over budgets and cooking and cleaning, even as he studies so very hard. He got an offer to be a baker’s apprentice, and they were all so proud, because it meant he could have a profession, could own his own bakery one day, could rise beyond his status as an orphan. He’ll be leaving in two months, the day he turns eighteen, but she knows he’ll come back, just like the other orphans who had to leave do. They still pitch in, still spare as much money as they can without starving to death, and the fact that children who have been pushed to the bottom of the barrel and forgotten can be kinder than adults who should have helped them up, only serves to make the fire burn brighter in her heart.

It isn’t Konoha’s bullshit version of the Will of Fire, their propaganda doctrine that’s supposed to brainwash their child soldiers into unmoving loyalty, unquestioning obedience, but her own, determined fire that would gleam whenever she got a particularly horrible case.

It’s her desire for justice, to see a wrong righted, to see the perpetrators realise that they will never see the light of day for their crimes.

“What happened?” Yuji asks gently, crouching down to meet her face head on. Kyoko shoos the other children away, reminds them that it’s almost bedtime, even as they complain about the unfairness of it all, but Nana is relieved to have the quietness back, the pretence of order and control.

“The... Hokage wanted to see me. To talk about...” she bites her lip. The Academy was... not quite a death sentence, but close to one. There weren’t a lot of paths for clanless orphans in Konoha, despite the illusion of them. You either stayed in civilian school until you turned eighteen, at which point you were thrown out of the orphanage and expected to make your own way, or you joined the Academy during Recruitment Day, left the orphanage when you graduated, and became cannon fodder in the Genin Corps.

There was barely any opportunity for an orphan to graduate past Genin, and most of the time they’d be left behind when their teammate became Chuunin, shunted off to the side and sent off for dangerous courier missions they weren’t prepared for.

The mortality rate of orphans, of clanless children who became shinobi was close to 90 per cent, and she wasn’t over exaggerating. Jounin teachers were more concerned with any clan children they got than some presumably talentless child, and it left them unprepared for the horrors to come. Even in the Academy, where you’d expect equal treatment, there was none. You either kept up or got kicked out, with no additional support for children who hadn’t been moulding chakra since they could lift their pudgy arms up.

“I’ve been enrolled in the Academy. I start tomorrow.”

For a second, it’s completely silent, before Ryuu hoarsely whispers: “What?”

Nana doesn’t want to repeat herself, doesn’t want to believe what she’s done, what she’s let happen. Yuji doesn’t say anything, but he leans back, lets his hand slip from her shoulder and stands up.

“Did you have a choice?” He murmurs, but he knows the answer. They all know the answer.

“No.”

And that’s the truth of it. She had no choice, no excuse to refuse the Hokage’s offer. He wouldn’t have let, would have gently persuaded her otherwise, because-

Because she’s the Kyuubi container, and needs to be trained. Needs to be prepared. The enrolment age of the Academy may have been lifted during peacetime, but she is a weapon.

Their weapon.

But her enrolment isn’t the worst thing.

She swallows, and announces quietly: “They’re moving me to an apartment.”

Something smashes into the ground, and she whirls, watches Ryuu stand over glass shards on the floor, face blotchy and red as she punches the wall, her other fist bloody from the glass she broke. Kanna has started to weep again, burying her hands in her face and shuddering violently. Ryuu screams brokenly, furiously, and Kyoko rushes over, pulls her away even as she fights back. Yuji says nothing at all.

“It’s never enough, is it?!” Ryuu shrieks, and Nana is reminded that she’s only fifteen, that despite the maturity that fools even her into thinking she’s older, she’s still so very young. “What else do they want from us? What fucking else?”

She thinks she sees a glimpse of her ANBU guard through the grimy window, probably called over by the sound of shattering, but their nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her eye, and she doubts herself.

“When do you leave?” Yuji sounds so empty, so broken, that she can’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.

“Tomorrow.”

Kanna _howls_ , and it rings in her mind, vibrates in her very soul, because it’s the sound of someone who is losing everything in front of her and can’t stop it, and she knew Kanna was fond of her, couldn’t stop her own affection blooming for the older girl, but she-

She didn’t know she loved her to this extent, didn’t realise that the others loved her as well, and she starts to sob as well. She blames it on her childish young mind later, tries to pretend it was just another lapse in control, but- These are her kids, her family, and she’s being torn apart from them again. Yuji rushes over to her then, eyes wide behind his glasses and he scoops her up like she’s three again, holds her close and tries to soothe her, but all she can think about are Kanna’s wails, Ryuu’s shrieks of outrage, Kyoko’s silence, Yuji’s emptiness, and she _hates_. She hates Konoha, hates this world, hates the system that has forced these broken children to a point of no return.

She sees Haru in the doorway, Haru who probably left their workplace early to check in on them, because they always do that, even if they stopped living at the orphanage months ago. The kids who left visit a lot, scrape together what money they can to ease the burden slightly, even if they still live in squalor as well, because they’re a family, and she-

She doesn’t want to lose this. Even if it’s only been three years, even if she barely knows them, they’re her family.

And then Kanna is there, arms slipping around her as she holds her tight to her chest, to her heart, and weeps silently into her kimono.

“Not her,” she sobs out, “not her, please, please, not her-!”

“When will it be enough?” Kyoko whispers weakly in the distance, voice hoarse from their silent fury, their loathing, and Ryuu scoffs bitterly.

“This is Konoha. It’ll never be enough.” Even as Kyoko quickly shushes her, eyes fearful of retaliation, because what Ryuu says is basically fucking treason, she can see Yuji’s mouth thin in agreement, can see the tremble in his fists.

When will they be enough? She wonders.

They’ll never be enough. The victims never are, in regimes like these. They’ll be swallowed up whole, pulverised without any thought because-

They don’t matter.

They don’t matter.               

She once read a character say in a fanfiction that Konoha was the worst of all the Hidden Villages. That the corruption, the death ran deeper in its rotting roots than it showed. And she’s inclined to agree. This whole world is so fucked up, so completely and utterly abhorrent, but she’s never been able to stand for hypocrisy and all she’s seen in Konoha is the hypocritical actions of a dictator who believes he’s working for peace as he lets the drums of war beat below the surface.

They are the bones to support the thrones of power-hungry warmongers, they are the blood that keeps them delighted, they are the tears that keep them sated.

It will never be enough.

 

* * *

 

In the warm glow of the morning, it is Kanna who gets her ready. Her meagre belongings were packed up last night by Haru, after she had exhausted herself with crying and fury. They’re already gone in the morning, have to go to work if they want to keep their job, but she felt them press a kiss to her head in the night, a gentle stroke of her head, before they left. She slept tangled in Kanna’s arms, the elder girl unwilling to let her go, not when it was their last night together.

She thinks she blames herself, blames herself for failing her. Her first care-child, and she’s losing her to the greedy hands of men rotted with power. So she lets Kanna fuss, pretends not to notice her watery voice or glistening eyes as she fiddles with her clothing. Ryuu, who gruffly announced he was a guy today, his carefully painted makeup hiding the tears of last night, dumped his old clothing on her, told her she could keep it, before he hurried off, unable to look her in the eyes.

They’re surprisingly durable, made of good material and despite the fact that they’re slightly big, it’s perfect for exercise. Perfect for fighting, for learning how to fight and kill and-

“Ryuu used to be in the Academy,” Kanna explains softly, as she braids her hair gently, “his parents were shinobi before...” She trails off, and Nana can fill in the blanks. Before the Kyuubi attack. Before they died. Before he came here.

“He dropped out after that, but since- He thought it would be helpful to give them to you.” Her voice hitches in the middle, hands shaking as they deftly twist her braid into a bun, but Nana says nothing. Can’t say anything to that. Once she’s done, Kanna’s hands rest softly on her shoulders, a wobbly smile on her face as they look at each other through the mirror.

“There,” she whispers, “you look very cute. And your hair won’t... won’t get in the way...” Nana twists to hug her tightly, buries her face in her worn clothing, breathes in the shampoo Kanna had saved up for, and tries very hard not to cry again.

“I don’t... I don’t-” I don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave, she wants to scream, and her carer hears it without her saying, smiles so sadly, so emptily, and leans forward to press a kiss against her head.

“You’ll do wonderfully. You’re... so smart, so strong and brave, Nana. You’ll take the world by storm, I can feel it, because you’re Uzumaki Nana, and you don’t take shit from anyone, yes?” Despite the pride in her voice, Nana can hear the desperate sadness, the resigned acceptance of the situation, and she pushes her sadness down, lets the spiteful determination be lit ablaze within her, because spite has always been her biggest motivator, has shoved her in the direction of success, because if she hears anyone tell her she can’t do it, she’ll grin at them and tell them to fuck off, before proceeding to be the absolute best as a wonderful fuck you. She did it when her grandmother told her she was an abomination for marrying a woman, did it when her bosses told her to sit her pretty head down and just do her work, did it when sleazy opposition lawyers told her she’d never find the evidence.

She always did.

She always fucking did because she was-

(a whispered name, joyful, disgusted, loving, gentle-)

Because she’s Uzumaki Nana, and she refuses to let this world continue to beat her down. To beat her family down.

Something must show on her face, because Kanna’s sadness lifts slightly, smile stretching into something so very proud and loving, and another piece slots itself beneath her heart, another unknown strand of choice that weaves itself into her final decision.

Nana goes to the Academy with her head held high, the tearful goodbyes of her family still ringing in her ears as she makes her way alone, because none of the older children could get out of school to walk her there, none of them could afford it, but it doesn’t matter. She isn’t six, no matter how much she let herself indulge in that yesterday. She has to stop thinking she’s six, has to stop making excuses. She has to get strong, even as the disgust and hatred of her actions threatens to eat her alive, but she’d rather be consumed by herself than by the outstretched hands of leaders who think they know better, of leaders who maintain the status quo under the guise of peace.

She will get strong enough to... do something. Maybe change the world, but that brings forth a whole different slew of problems that she’ll think on later. For now, it’s her first day of the Academy, and she’s ready. Or, as ready as someone can ever be.

(She’s not. She’s not ready, and she never will be.)

 

* * *

 

To many, the Academy is a place of safety, of learning, of development. It’s where young clan heirs learn to uphold the reputation of their family, where civilian born shinobi go on to greatness, where children go to be strong, to protect and serve their village.

It’s all horseshit, of course. Prettied up propaganda, so nicely decorated that even the most cynical arseholes buy into it. This is where children become indoctrinated, where they become soldiers, where they learn how to kill. This is where children go to die.

(She thinks distantly of Hatake Kakashi, entering at four and leaving at her age, thinks of Itachi, who was taken to a battle field at an age when she was still playing in mud. Thinks of Sai and Yugito Nii and all the other characters she only learned about through fanfiction and the wiki, thinks of their stories and hardships, and how no-one lifted a finger to help.)

She’s joining her class quite late, will probably be held back for the next class to come (which will bring a whole bunch of familiar faces, familiar futures and promises that she won’t let happen), but the Hokage wanted her in the Academy now, and what the dictator wants, the dictator gets. She can feel the glares on her back even as she enters the courtyard, her whisker marks standing out strongly on her face, a reminder to everyone of a secret that should have been kept, but wasn’t.

(A promise to Namikaze Minato broken, just another of so many. Crossed fingers behind backs as they swear to tell the truth. Liars never change, no matter the world. Here it’s just expected.)

Nana ignores the glares with a practiced ease, lets the mutters and hissed curses fly over her head because she was called a lot worse in her old world, faced a lot worse than a bunch of idiots willing to use a child as a scapegoat.

(Intellectually, she knows it isn’t really their fault. No-one ever explained to them what the sealing meant, no-one bothers to tell civilians anything after all, but their willingness, their inability to look past it, the lack of free-will and thought that permeates the entire village makes her hair stand on end.)

She is given a nameless, faceless teacher who she doesn’t bother to learn the name of because she’ll never see him again, is placed in a class of characters never mentioned anywhere. The lost, the forgotten, the unwritten. They stare at her with thinly veiled hostility, but her gaze slides off them, and... she finds it hard to focus on them. Can barely recognise their faces, even after introductions, all of them sliding into a mass of nothingness.

It terrifies her.

This... this has never happened before, and no matter how hard she tries to concentrate, she finds her eyes slipping away, faces and names erased without a second thought. A boy next to her introduces himself with a grin and-

She can’t remember his name.

She looks around, and there is only the unknown.

And she wonders.

She wonders if this will happen with-

No, no, no she refuses to let that happen, they have integrated themselves too heavily in her life to be forgotten like that, and she repeats their names like a prayer, all of them, every single child in that orphanage over and over, even as the unfinished blob representing her teacher scolds her for her inattention, even as she’s forced to run five, ten, fifteen laps, each blurring into the next as the eyes of the faceless watch her.

She can hear the lectures, but not recognise the sound of her teacher’s voice, can watch the diagrams and graphs being drawn on the board, but not the hands drawing it, can feel the sheet of paper and pencil in front of her, but not the hand passing it out.

And she realises how cruel this world really is, to delete the background characters from her mind, to erase the unimportant.

Because this is still a story, after all, and those in the back are rarely remembered.

With clenched fists, she tries to push the thoughts away, tries to ignore the implications that this has, instead focuses on the classes, before wishing she didn’t.

It’s all propaganda, all useless, stupid propaganda, honeyed words that perfectly trap impressionable kids into a life of murder and crime. She listens to the teacher spew enticing words of the history of Konoha (the victors write history, painting a pretty picture over the ugliness that got them there in the first place), presenting math problems that sharpen their mind into minds into accurate killers, giving them sheets of paper to carefully trace the characters for loyalty, Hokage, Konoha, and so on and so on, all under the guise of writing lessons.

She’s as disgusted as she’s impressed, because only the nastiest fuckers in her old world were able to achieve this level of brainwashing. And that’s what this bullshit is, brainwashing. And no-one questioned it, no-one stopped to pause and _think_. For all they preached logical and analytical thinking, it was never actually fucking put in use.

Idiots, she thinks, she’s surrounded by idiots and war criminals alike, and at this point, she isn’t sure there’s a difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there we have it. We're still on the baby steps of plot, but I have ideas. A lot of them. This chapter wasn't as heavy on the politics and introspection as the last chapter, since I wanted to sort of slowly add some background to Nana, her family, and what will eventually motivate her for change, but I really want to add more for the next chapter. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this and leave a review on the way out!
> 
> <https://negativeaperture.tumblr.com/>


	3. Security

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY FOR HOW LATE THIS IS. My only explanation would be exams, graduating, and starting law school, but to be honest, I also had difficulty actually, uh, coming up with a real plot for this. I think I sort of have one? But don't quote me on that. Anyway, ho boy, the response to this has been immense and I'm absolutely stunned so many of you like this? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I read every comment, even if I didn't reply, and it made me giddy with joy. I recently got a new one and it was the kick in the ass that finally made me finish this chapter. I had it half-written out already, I just wasn't sure in what direction I was going. (Still not quite but hey, I'll figure it out.) This will still probably be updated sporadically because of university, but I'll try my absolute best.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all so so much for your support! I hope this continues to meet people's expectations!
> 
> ALSO: There is some slight suicidal ideation here, so if that squicks you out, skip once you reach "What the fuck is she doing?" to "She forces herself to stand up..."

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

—  _Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights_

 

* * *

 

When the school day finally ends, all Nana can feel is a desperate, clawing relief, and she practically flings herself out of the classroom. She can’t stay there another second. The first breath of fresh air soothes her racing mind, and she tries not to gasp for more. She can feel the stares of wary civilians around her, judging eyes drilling into her skin. Some shuffle away, others tut and whisper, but the hostility is still tangible. A sour taste spreads across her tongue, the short-lived relief she felt slowly sloughing off her, and she swallows. She scans the playground outside the building bitterly, narrowed eyes weighing up each person around her and finding them lacking. A heaviness sets into her bones, because she knows there will be no respite. Maybe, maybe if she was returning back to the orphanage she could find some comfort.

But this isn’t the case.

(And never will be again.)

And then her eyes land on a hunched figure standing cautiously on the outskirts, and she wants to cry.

Kyoko is waiting for her, posture nervous as they stand uncomfortably in the slowly emptying schoolyard. An ANBU member looms stiffly beside them as they wait, thick, red lines morphing their mask into a caricature of an animal. Even from a distance she can spot the naked fear and wariness on Kyoko’s face, hands wringing their shirt as they keep their eyes averted from the shinobi in their presence.

Nana’s heart speeds up, both in worry and fury, and she forces her short legs to hurry faster as she jogs over to the two of them. She staunchly refuses to look at the ANBU waiting with them, instead turning to face her sibling (in everything but blood, they are all her family), schooling her face into sheepish delight.

“Kyoko, sorry to make you wait! I didn’t know you were going to pick me up!” she babbles out, grasping their hand with her own smaller one. Kyoko gives a weak smile, hand sweaty and hanging limp as their eyes dart over to the unspoken third person.

“Yes I... I thought you would want someone to pick you up and... and take you to...” They trail off, voice trembling in nervousness and anxiety. Nana grips their hand harder.

“That’s awesome!” she cheers, and she can feel Kyoko’s incredulous stare, can feel their doubt and confusion over her cheery attitude, but she just squeezes their hand again. A soft warning, a gentle acknowledgement, slight enough to be mistaken as a young girl seeking comfort from family. But there is a quiet meaning behind it. Not here, it says, not now. Play along.

“ANBU-san here... was going to take you since they... they know the address. I... I wasn’t sure-” they cut themself off, the terror proving too much. Nana can feel the soft rise of anger in her chest, the violent fury that begs to be let out, because these shinobi are meant to protect, are meant to look after children like them, children of the so-called ‘Leaf’, and yet all they do is inspire fear and desperation, resigned apathy and clawing panic.

It’s all bullshit. Every single word shat out of the Hokage’s mouth, every prettied up lie that rests within her history books, every character used to write ‘Will of Fire’ drips in blood and hypocrisy. It’s propaganda, a way to keep killers and monsters under a fragile lead of loyalty. A hollow justification for their actions. Their independent thoughts and questions are choked off; their logic is blinded from before they can crawl, before they can speak, simply to perpetuate the profitability of war and violence.

But it’s not just Konoha who is guilty. The whole world has been poisoned by these meaningless gestures, by the pointless loyalty to a village that does not care if you live or die as long as you serve your purpose. Nationalism and patriotism are tools of obedience, chains wrapped around everyone’s minds and hearts to keep them shackled to empty ideals and futile missions. She’s seen what nationalism does, what suicidal loyalty to a regime, to an ideal that couldn’t give a shit about you can cause, has fought for victims of such blind acceptance and violent devotion.

And she’s seen there’s no point to it.

There is no point to any of this, to loyalty and obedience and the fucking Will of Fire. The only people who could gain anything from this are at the top, and they have been corrupted by years and years’ worth of lies and spoon-fed bullshit. It’s a system designed for destruction, doomed for failure and death and pointless, pointless bloodshed. In a world like this, no-one profits, no really.

But it’s all they know.

It’s become so deeply engrained in their minds and their bodies that their only worth is to fight for a village that wouldn’t even fucking exist without the people within it. That the highest honour is death in service of the village, murder in service of the village, torture in service of the village. For the village, for the village, _**for the village** -!_

The village doesn’t even exist. Not really. What is a town, a city, a world without inhabitants, without people to give it life and strength? There is pride, and then there is blind patriotism into a piece of land. If shinobi were really protecting the people within, then this system would be dismantled, would be removed impossibly quickly. What is the point of protecting people that will just die the moment another warmonger decides that war and battle will solve all of the problems? What is the point of slaughtering innocent people, helpless in the power of chakra, for... for nothing?

What is the point of power, for power’s sake, when there’s no use for it at all?

(The biggest flaw in power is what comes after. Because what do you do when you have everything? What do you do when there is nothing left to conquer, to subjugate, to lose or gain? What then?)

Nana turns her attention back to Kyoko, to the ANBU standing silently close by, and smiles childishly.

“I’m sure you can come with me! Right, ANBU-san?”

They say nothing, mask watching her intensely. She knows the answer.

She’s seen fear tactics, has listened to her clients speak of subtle manipulations and implied suggestions, and she’s starting to realise what’s going on here.

Kyoko will not be coming with her.

Instead, they reach out to touch her shoulder, face guilty and scared, and Nana wishes she could grab her sibling and run.

“It’s... It’s okay Nana. I should probably head back soon and... start to cook. Kanna has to work late tonight and Yuji said his boss wanted to talk to him before he left work, so... it’s just me and Ryuu this evening,” they explain softly, hand curling into the barest amount of pressure on her shoulder before releasing it.

And in that moment Nana fully understands why the ANBU is standing there silently, intimidatingly, why they refused to give an answer to her reasonable request.

Separation.

The Hokage wants to separate her completely from the orphanage, wants to pry her away from the possible influences her family could place upon her. They pose a threat to her loyalty, and must therefore be removed. It sounds fucking stupid, because why would he want to drag her from the only people she wants to protect, until you notice how difficult it is to keep track of the orphans.

Orphans can get up and leave Konoha with ease, can build connections with those who might seek to topple the Hokage or otherwise cause trouble. They aren’t watched, aren’t important to anyone, and if one of her family became a sleeper-agent, a turn-coat, a traitor to a village that never cared, they could persuade her away from serving the Hokage. The orphans are too flighty, too loose, too unpredictable. Her loyalty cannot belong to them, not anymore.

And a part of her knows that if she ignores this unspoken expectation, if she continues to attach herself to them, something will happen. She could see it already, could hear the Hokage gently telling her that her family left to go find a better life on the farms, in the Capital, outside of Konoha, even as the hands of his guards drip with blood.

No-one cares about the orphans anyway.

She wants to vomit.

“Okay,” Nana says easily, lightly, and Kyoko’s face falls slightly. She tries to convey her apologies, her own sadness and unwillingness, and something in their face softens.

“Look after yourself Nana, and... make sure to visit! We love you dearly.” They press a gentle kiss to her forehead, an unspoken apology for leaving, before pulling away.

“I’m gonna be really busy with school, but I’ll try to come by! Tell everyone I love ‘em!”

(Tell everyone I’m sorry.)

Kyoko lingers for a final few seconds, before finally turning away and going back to the orphanage, back to the family.

A quiet goodbye.

(She won’t be seeing them for a while. Not if she wants them to live.)

She boxes up the orphanage, her family, her feelings, and pushes it away, deep, deep into a corner of her mind. She can show no weakness, no hesitation.

She must survive for them.

The ANBU member silently watches Kyoko leave, only turning to face her once they’ve completely disappeared.

“This way,” a low voice commands, before moving quickly away from the school. Nana startles at the sudden movement, trying to hurry after them despite the disparity between their long legs and her short ones. She barely focuses on where she’s going, too occupied in keeping up with her quick guide. They walk for at least ten minutes, going in the opposite direction of the orphanage and the slums and instead approaching a row of simple concrete buildings. Most of them look slightly run down and she can’t help but wonder if this was where the original Naruto lived.

A part of her hopes so, because from the bare bones of the show she had seen and the fics she read, he was usually left alone and neglected. Being ignored by almost everyone would give her the time and cover to train in secret and just... think. The appearance of the ANBU suggests that she’s going to be under further supervision, restraining her own opportunities to document various plans. She wonders if communicating with the Kyuubi is going to be impossibly difficult, if any attempts to reach him will notify her watchers and get her into a lot of hot water and questioning.

The ANBU leads her into her simple apartment, sparsely furnished and militaristically functional. An envelope of money is pressed into her hands, and in a swirl of leaves, Nana is left alone in her new home. It’s bigger than she expects, living room and bedroom separate with a decently sized bathroom. Somehow she had imagined something... smaller. Worse.

(But then again, they had to appease her in some ways. If they moved her to a place worse than the orphanage then she would have returned no matter what, and they couldn’t have that. It was a bribe and a warning together.)

But it doesn’t matter how surprising her apartment is, how much ‘better’ it is in comparison to her last room. In the end, she is still six years old and they’re sending her to live alone with no guidance, no adult figure, no help.

The realisation sinks deeper and her hands tremble.

Nana swallows softly, and tries to focus on her new place of residence, ignoring the small nagging feeling in her mind that’s telling her she’s taking on something too big.

And like so many times before, she doubts herself.

 

* * *

 

Life is silent. Where before there was the occasional laugh, the gentle touches and reassuring looks, there is nothing now. She hasn’t seen a single one of her siblings since she was pried away from them, and as much as her heart aches in loneliness, she forces herself to continue. She can’t endanger them, not until she’s strong enough to scoop them all up and run, run, run. Not until she has the power to protect them from the world that will take and keep on taking from her and everyone else.

The question still lingers in the back of her mind. Can she task herself with the upheaval of this system? Does she even have the right to inspire revolution, to overturn these lands to fit to her image? Or would she be just as bad as the Hokage, as the men and women she helped prosecute and put behind bars? Would she too lose sight of her goal and become a warped, twisted being?

Her mind buzzes constantly, different parts of her warring constantly within her. A large piece is yelling at her to cut her losses. She can’t change this world, not like this, not properly. She should run the moment she can, take the people she loves with her, and live out the rest of their days in a false security. The Akatsuki could be dealt with, ANBU could be dodged eventually, and if she runs to the ends of the earth and beyond, will they really be able to catch her?

And yet... running has never solved anything. It has never been in her nature to turn away and disappear. She despaired of the world around her, back in her former life, but she had never stopped fighting for the glimmer of peace she thought could one day come.

But back then she was relatively safe. She wasn’t at the front lines, she wasn’t a revolutionary in the moment of battle. She was cocooned in a courthouse, a bubble protecting her from the worst of the worst.

Her mind bounces between the different positions, each one arguing a strong and solid case as to why she should do X and not Y, locked in a never ending stalemate. She finds herself training later and later, books hastily stolen from the Academy library showing her the rudimentary forms she’ll eventually learn, but has to know _now_. At the very least, the routine allows for a heavy static to blanket her mind and _shut it up for once_.

She is fully aware that there is no real solution to this predicament. She’ll be damned no matter what she does. That was one of her wife’s favourite sayings. Nana can practically hear her gentle voice, sweet and sardonic, chuckling out: “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The world isn’t going play with you, honey. But you’ll figure out the best option, you always do.” And then she’d pull her close, drop a chaste kiss to her lips, and they’d watch a shitty movie until the world righted itself again.

-fuck, she misses her. She would know what to do, would have already started at least four different plans and seven backup plans, and here Nana is, floundering over the slightest of decisions. To train fully, or not? To stick to the plot, or to dance away? To pretend, or pretend slightly less?

(To survive, or let herself die, and damn this god forsaken world anyway?)

Blood fills her mouth at the thought, sharp teeth piercing through her lip, and she curses, hand cupping her sore mouth, flinching out of the stance she had forced herself into. The wound isn’t too deep, but it’ll definitely sting for the next few minutes, at least until her healing factor kicked in. The pain soon ebbs away, but she doesn’t continue her training. Instead she drops to the floor, and buries her face in her hands.

What the hell is she doing? What’s she fucking playing at? She can’t do this. She isn’t a shinobi, isn’t a civilian, isn’t a part of this doomed world, not really. She’s been peeled away and squeezed into the wrong body, the wrong place, confronted with a world that’s falling apart at the seams due to warmongers and dictators, stripped away from the only warmth that dares to embrace her-

What the fuck is she doing?

Not for the first time, something dark creeps into her thoughts. Let them doom themselves, let them watch the Village they have been tricked into loving crumble and shatter. She has the tools to remove herself from the equation, to end her role in this tortuous play.

It would be so easy for her to grab a kunai-

She gasps, harsh and shuddering, neat nails clawing at the carpet below her. She can’t think like that. Death is another step, but she refuses to play an active role in her own one.

(not yet. not unless there’s no other option.)

She forces herself to stand up, to splash her face with freezing cold water, flinching at the way it hits her in the face. Her mind wakes up and the spiral is shooed away.

“Okay,” she whispers to herself, forcing herself to feel a calm she hadn’t experienced once in this world. “Okay. Game plan time.”

It was time she stopped dawdling. She hurries over to her closed blinds, pulling a crack aside to glance outside the window. The sun has long since settled past the horizon, the sticky warmth of the day fleeing in the face of the night, and she allows herself to crack open the window. The cool rush of air is a balm against her skin, and an unused smile twitches against her face.

She’s always loved the autumn, and for all its faults, Konoha is a beautiful city. Amber lights dance across the horizon, and she can hear the low chatter of people before they disappear off into their houses. Black smudges dart across buildings, and her momentary good mood sours. For a moment, she could have pretended... No. She can’t forget where she is. Can’t forget that she isn’t safe, and probably never will be. She hastily closes the window again, tugging the blinds back into place, and tries not to long for the soft peace she felt.

It would be best if she headed off to bed, and let herself get a good night’s rest for once.

 

* * *

 

But nothing ever goes to plan, does it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. Uh. Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this but uhhhh, i never actually read/watched naruto myself. I really don't have the attention span for it, even though I find the story so fascinating. I've got a buddy who has actually watched it, and I can ask them about some of the specifics, but other than that, most of my knowledge comes from the wiki, other fanfics, and a bit of imagination. I really hope this doesn't put anyone off! I should also mention that a lot of the lawyer shenanigans is fiction, apart from the chapter titles (which are actually from the UN Human Rights Declaration, so if you want a hint as to what the next chapter is gonna be about, check it out ;) ) and some other stuff, but other than that, a lot of the system is dramatised. This might be corrected later on? But for now I'm gonna figure the story out. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, please leave a review, kudos and bookmark on your way out!
> 
> <https://negativeaperture.tumblr.com/>


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